Sheriffs Office

GOP seizes on 2008 statement by Mark Udall on health care reform

Republican operatives believe they have found a smoking gun against Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, who said during a 2008 debate he was against a "government-sponsored" solution for health care.

The then-congressman, who was running for an open seat in the U.S. Senate, echoed arguments made by conservatives.

"I'm not for a government-sponsored solution," Udall said. "I'm for enhancing and improving the employer-based system that we have."

In a debate overshadowed by other issues — rising energy prices and the war on terror — Udall's answer that July barely created a ripple. But in the context of Sen. Udall's vote for the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and his tough re-election bid against Republican Congressman Cory Gardner in November, the statement takes on new meaning.

The Spot Blog

Udall's vote for the health care law has provided fodder for a number of campaign attack ads.

"Mark Udall was elected on a lie," Gardner said. "Mark Udall promised he would not support a government-sponsored solution and he broke that promise and voted for Obamacare."

Udall's campaign says if Republicans believe they have found a smoking gun, they're simply shooting themselves in the foot because Obamacare is not government-run health care.

"They are grasping at straws," Udall spokeswoman Kristin Lynch said.

The influential PolitiFact bolsters Udall's argument. The Pulitzer Prize winning independent fact-checking website awarded its 2010 Lie of the Year to the claim that the Democratic law amounted to a "government takeover of health care."

" 'Government takeover' conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed ... relies largely on the free market," PolitiFact concluded.

(Three years later, PolitiFact awarded its 2013 Lie of the Year to President Obama's claim, echoed by Udall, that: "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.")

The goals of health care reform included increasing the quality and affordability of health insurance and lowering the uninsured rate by expanding public and private insurance coverage.

Since taking office in 2011, Gardner has voted 52 times to repeal Obamacare.

The Washington Post last month reported, "Obamacare is hurting Democrats as the 2014 election approaches," but the law is not the dominant voting issue, "regardless of how much money is being spent to drive home that point."

Udall's 2008 comment about health care reform came during his first U.S. Senate debate, which was sponsored by the Southeast Business Partnership, now known as the Denver South Economic Development Partnership. Udall faced former Congressman Bob Schaffer for the open seat held by retiring U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, a Republican.

The candidates were asked, "What is your overall plan for health care reform in the next Congress?"

Dick Wadhams, who was Schaffer's campaign manager and chairman of the Colorado Republican Party at the time, said Udall's 2008 answer will be highly effective in 2014.

In the first U.S. Senate debate in 2008, the candidates were asked their plan for health-care reform. Here's what Udall, a Democratic congressman, said:

"We have 800,000 people here in Colorado who don't have health care. Many of them feel like they're an illness away from being bankrupt. They don't know how they're going to cover their premiums for the next month. This isn't acceptable. It weakens our economy. It's unconscionable.

We want to have Coloradans healthy so they can all pull on an oar and make a contribution.

I'm not for a government-sponsored solution. I'm for enhancing and improving the employer-based system that we have.

Let me give you some ideas on how we can do that.

We ought to expand the children's health insurance program. For the life of me, I don't understand why President Bush opposed that expansion. ...

We ought to put more of an investment in electronic medical record keeping so we better practice medicine. We can create insurance pools for small business who, after all, carry some of this burden. And we can put in place tax credits for those in families who are struggling to meet those needs that the premiums present to them.

And we ought to make sure insurance companies can't discriminate against .us, our family members who have pre-existing conditions.

Those are some of the ways in which we can strengthen our health care system.

Again, there a lot of great ideas out there. Republicans have some great ideas. Democrats have a lot of great ideas. We ought to come together and work on this, starting next year to find a way to cover more Americans.

Do you know why? In the long run this is not only about our economy, it's about our national security. Because in order to win the war on terror, we have to have every American as healthy as possible. By working together we can do that."